


The Proper Care and Feeding of Plot Bunnies

by liesmyth



Category: Original Work
Genre: Magical Realism, Meta, Slice of Life, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-18 23:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17590745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/pseuds/liesmyth
Summary: On the tourist brochures that they’d given her at the airport, the slender print had recited:Everyone Can Attract A Plot Bunny — Even You.





	The Proper Care and Feeding of Plot Bunnies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anysin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anysin/gifts).



Of all the wonderful oddities of Literaria, Maggie loved the bunnies best. The _Lepores fabulatores_ , or plot bunnies, had long floppy ears and fluffy tails, and were as soft to the touch as a particularly squirmy cotton ball. Maggie adored them.

On the tourist brochures that they’d given her at the airport, the slender print had recited: _Everyone Can Attract A Plot Bunny — Even You_. It was hardly uncommon for every inhabitant to attract a bunny or two every day, materialising into the air with even a spark of an idea, and the Tourism Board didn’t want to scare any inexperienced first-time visitors. Still, despite all the warnings and educational videos, nothing could have prepared Maggie for the sight of the small grey bunny that came scurrying to her feet as soon as she walked out of the airport terminal.

“Oh, look at that,” said Ines, Maggie’s host. “That’s a pretty one. And pretty solid, too — what are you thinking about?”

“My blog post,” Maggie admitted. “I was going to write about the trip, and registration tomorrow.”

Above their heads, a red-spotted letterbird shrieked, wings flapping as a sprinkle of commas rained on their heads. They sparkled like copper-red glitter and Maggie startled, amazed. Then there was a flicker of motion at the corner of her eyes, and the bunny disappeared.

“So,” Ines said, “you’re an author, right? It’s a lot easier to keep the bunnies around if you have some experience with that. If you can’t feed them…” She shrugged. “They won’t last, but then again they always come back. Many prefer it that way.”

Maggie _was_ an author — not published, but Ines assured her that didn’t matter.

“Actual publishing’s more about implementation than ideas. Scissorbugs, cover parrots… you should see the university press building. Crawling with reference rodents.”

They toured the entire university complex on Maggie’s first day, but the academic hamsters left her cold. For all that they looked stunning, fur growing in all shades of the rainbow and fantastical patterns, the regimented way they moved left her slightly unsettled. Too much discipline there.

That night at the department get-together she met Carlos, who had a shaved head and stubble, and walked in followed by four different bunnies with fur the same identical shade of chocolate brown. The biggest was about the size of a football ball; Carlos caught Maggie’s gawk, and smiled at her.

“Do you want to hold it? It’s pretty friendly. I’ve had him for a while.”

Maggie did want to hold it; the bunny was soft to the touch and cuddly, its cute pink nose scrunching adorably as she held it in her hands.

“What kind of bunny is this?”

“Fiction,” said Carlos. “Well, adventure. All of my bunnies are the same type this year — this is my book. That’s the sequel,” He pointed to the second-biggest bunny. “I’m working on them back to back. That’s a short story idea, but I don’t know if I’m going to do anything with it… see how the ears are trembling? But I have plenty of ideas and I keep feeding it, so it’s pretty corporeal.”

“And that one?” Maggie pointed to the last bunny, with a small black spot between its ears.

“Oh, that’s unrelated. Same genre, different setting. I play with him when I need some distraction from the usual fare.”

“That’s amazing,” Maggie said, thinking about how incredible this all was — she needed to call her mother, maybe take a picture of two…

“Look at that!”

It was a new bunny, pearl-white and almost transparent. It was purring slightly, nosing at Maggie’s shoes, its cute ears flapping. She blinked, gawking, and then it was gone.

“You know,” Carlos said, “I teach a workshop on how to attract plot bunnies twice a week. You should come.”

On the first evening of the workshop, Carlos encouraged them to write down a variety of ideas. He had them discuss journal entries and science fiction and urban fantasy, thriller and murder mystery — and Maggie gasped when a red-headed girl managed to summon a bright yellow bunny in the middle of Carlos’s desk.

“Pretty cool right?” he said. “That’s a _giallo_ ,” he said. “We also get bunnies with spots, pink for romance and red for horror. Pretty neat.”

He went on, explaining proper grooming. Bunny grooming was recommended, but only truly became important when dealing with the bigger ones, whose stories were longer or more complex. Gentle edits as the writing proceeded were preferred to drastic changes halfway through — or, even, near the ending — which could be harsh on the bunnies’ health, and would need a long time to recover from.

“If you can manage it, you should find a friend or beta to help with their grooming. Or you can groom your own bunnies, but not all authors can be objective about that so be careful. But, in the end,” Carlos said. “The most important thing for your bunny is to take care of it, so that it will grow as healthy as it can be.”

At the end of the first week they each had to pick a story to work on, and try to summon the bunny repeatedly. Once the connection became strong enough, Carlos explained, the bunny wouldn’t leave, following them around as his own did.

“Even at night?” There was nothing better than a fluffy bunny to cuddle with at night, Maggie thought, but Carlos’s answering nod didn’t look anywhere as enthusiastic.

“ _Especially_ at night. They’ll keep you up if you aren’t careful — the bunnies like nothing better than getting you to play with them, but you’ve got to reign them in. Or you can get sleep meds for bunny fatigue, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

At home, sitting at her desk for an hour every night, Maggie practised keeping her bunny around. It was small but growing fast, with long grey fur streaked with white patterns. There was a pink spot next to its mouth that grew larger and more intense every day.

“Oh, that’s adorable,” Ines cooed, the first time she saw Maggie’s bunny in the kitchen. “Can I caress it?”

She stroked the pink spot with the back of her finger. “That’s a romance subplot, you know.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She hadn’t considered romance at first, but a few nights ago she’d given her main character an ex-girlfriend. But then Maggie had found herself wondering if it shouldn’t be a current girlfriend instead — after all, wasn’t a couple of witches better than just one witch? Or maybe they could get back together after the climax, to add more tension.

“Look at that. The fur is all standing up. UST?”

“Narrative tension,” Maggie said, but then she thought about it. “Maybe some UST, too.”

The fourth week of the workshop was all about romance, and near the end of the meeting they briefly discussed erotica.

“Now, it doesn’t matter how explicit you are,” Carlos began. “It’s all in your brain. The better you are at setting up the mood, or the more your idea resounds with you, the more excited your bunny will be.”

As if to demonstrate, he inclined his head towards Maggie’s bunny, that was nearly vibrating on top of her desk. “When your bunny’s like that, you might consider pausing for a while. I suggest you practice this over the weekend — you’ll see what I mean.”

Maggie spent Saturday afternoon working on an off-shoot of her main story, exploring the pre-breakout days of her main character and witch girlfriend. She started out writing at the kitchen table, but soon enough her bunny began jumping all around the furniture and making enough of a ruckus that Ines came running.

Then she stopped in the middle of the doorway, and laughed.

“Oh,” she said, knowingly. “That.”

She laughed even more as Maggie’s bafflement. “The bunny. That’s a horny one.” She kept looking at Maggie with her eyebrows raised. “You better go take care of that, or you’ll be too distracted to write it out.”

“Ah,” Maggie said, stupidly. She could feel her face flush warm, and she knew her cheeks must be read. “I’m— I’ll go.” She stood up. “Thanks.”

Her story kept getting longer, and her bunny was growing with it.

That wasn’t unusual, but it wasn’t the norm either. All through the workshop some of the others had their bunnies disappear and new ones show up in their places, a flurry of different colours and sizes and fur patterns. A girl named Carla, who was working on a short story collection, walked once into the class with no less than eight small bunnies at her heels. After that, some of the bunnies started to disappear as she began wrapping up all of her loose ends.

Maggie had named her bunny Magick, a working title if she’d ever used one. She fed her and groomed her as much as she could without getting too distracted from her university work. Magick was great for cuddles and extremely rewarding to keep around, and Maggie had thought that this would continue until the day they would part — a bittersweet thought, but perhaps the euphoria of finishing her project would help.

She hadn’t expected her bunny to have kits.

It happened in the middle of the night: she had been sleeping, in the middle of an odd dream, when she’d felt a small weight settle over her chest. It was something small and soft, agitating restlessly like Magick had in the first few weeks, before Maggie had learned to keep her quiet.

She opened her eyes sleepily and scrambled for the light switch, blinking.

On her chest there were three newborn bunnies, brown and tiny, their small ears flapping slowly. Under Maggie’s eyes, they started to purr.

When she walked into the kitchen that morning, Ines glanced at the new kits and shrugged. “Well, now you know, they're _bunnies_ ,” she said. “They breed a lot.”

It was the seventh week of their workshop, and Maggie had started to think her story might be drawing to an end. She'd been planning on getting another bunny afterwards, maybe after a short break and some more time set aside for editing. Bunnies were as cute as they were rewarding, and she’d definitely like another one… but she’d just never planned for three at once.

“You know how it is,” Carlos shrugged, sympathetic. “Writing gets a bit out of control sometimes. But they’re fun, aren’t they?”

They were, although the smallest grey kit was easily the most excitable plot bunny Maggie had ever seen. It bustled around her feet with every step, chaotically roaming every room she was in and jumping into her lap every time she sat down, nagging her until she sat down to write. It was tiring, sometimes, to take care of so many bunnies, and frustrating — but it was _fun_ , and Maggie wouldn’t trade it for the world.


End file.
